View of the onion dome mosaic by Nesterov in the Church of the Saviour on Blood in St. Petersburg

The Russian Museum has opened an exhibit coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the birth of painter Mikhail Nesterov. The creative oeuvre of the painter that was connected with religious and philosophic searches of the so-called Silver Age of the Russian culture revealed to a viewer the wonderful poetical world of the Orthodox monasteries and Old-believing cells, fascination of the nature of Middle Russia and the inspired beauty of the national character. The best characteristics of a creative person had found their embodiment in the images of the artist’s famous contemporaries. These works are regarded as the classics of the portrait genre in Russian art.

Nesterov created frescoes and mosaics for the Holy Protection Cathedral at the Martha and Mary Convent in Moscow

The exhibition includes about 200 paintings and graphic works from the collections of the Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Art Museum of the Republic of Bashkiria, the State Picture Gallery of Astrahan, the State Museum of the History of Religion, the Scientific-Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, the State Historical, ï¿½rt and Literary Museum Reserve Abramtsevo, the Tver Regional Picture Gallery, the Church and Archeology Cabinet of the Moscow Orthodox Ecclesiastical Academy, the State Museum Reverse Pavlovsk, the State Museum Reverse Peterhof, and from the private collections.

From 1890 to 1910, Nesterov lived in Kiev and St. Petersburg where he worked on frescoes and mosaics in St. Vladimir's Cathedral and the Church of the Saviour on Blood. After 1910, he spent the remainder of his life in Moscow, working in the Martha and Mary Convent.

As a devout Orthodox Christian, Nesterov could never accept the Bolshevik Revolution but remained in Russia until his death in 1942.